North Bend resident Kevin Owens wants to be the eyes and ears for the state’s veterans. With his recent appointment to the Oregon Department of the Veterans’ Affairs Advisory Committee, he will have the perfect opportunity to do just that.

The committee is a nine-member advisory committee to the director of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Members are appointed by the Governor to serve four-year terms. Along with Owens, Gov. Ted Kulongoski appointed three other new members: Joseph R. Howell, an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran from Albany; Eugene J. LaBonte, a Vietnam-era veteran from Grand Ronde; and Gerard F. Lorang, a Vietnam-era veteran from Portland.

“I’m very excited,” Owens said Friday. “I think it is an opportunity to help veterans.”

Owens, who is a manager at Platt Electric in North Bend, has a surprisingly soft voice and rosy-red cheeks, accented by a graying goatee and bright blue eyes. He is a tall and large man who would have made an imposing figure in a uniform, any uniform. He chose that of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Owens lived and breathed the Coast Guard for 12 years as an electrician until he was medically retired in 1996. In 1992, a blood clot was found in his right leg and the condition progressively got worse until, four years later, he could no longer serve in the Coast Guard.

Retiring was difficult for Owens.

“I missed the camaraderie,” he said.

He turned his energy to working for veterans.

Owens has held many positions in the American Legion, starting with offices in the local post to his current position of Department Vice Commander of the Oregon chapter. This year, he is running for Department Commander.

Owens thinks not only his service, but his years with working with veterans will be valuable experience as he works on the committee.

As a bonus, earning an appointment to the committee gives Owens still another way to represent his branch of service — he is the first Coast Guard veteran to sit on the committee since it was created in 1945.

Owens has worked in the military and veterans organizations for more than 20 years. But even so, he was surprised at how many people were at the committee’s meeting Wednesday in Salem.

“It was just overwhelming the first time,” he said. “You know how important it is to people. It really lets you know that you have a responsibility.”

It’s a responsibility Owens is anxious to take head on.

Being from the South Coast, Owens knows having access to health care can be a challenge to some veterans. Having only one VA clinic in the region, in Bandon  and being hours away from Roseburg and Portland is a hardship for South Coast vets, he said, especially those who don’t drive.

It is those sorts of issues Owens would like to address while serving on the committee, although he admits he is still learning how everything works. He said the basic idea is that members of the committee become a voice for the concerns of the veterans.

“We take back ideas that veterans want,” Owens said.

He isn’t the only member of his family who has made a mission out of working for those who served in the military.

Owen’s wife, Krisann, has been at it longer than he has. She has worked with and for veterans through the American Legion Auxiliary for 32 years. She said her father signed her up when she was just 11 years old.

“We are very much a veteran-oriented family,” Owens said, adding with a smile, that even family vacations tend to revolve around veterans’ activities.

Her husband’s appointment may fit with family tradition, but Krisann considers it a special privilege, given how many other people there were to choose from.

“He was excited, (and) very honored,” she said. “It is kind of a humbling thing when you asked to do this.”

Owens looks at his efforts to assure those who have served in the military are well taken care of after they return home as a driving force in his life.

“I take being a veteran pretty seriously,” he said. “I see it as an opportunity to give back to the community. I hate to see people suffer because of some disability.”